


Life's a Beach: A Star Wars fanfiction

by BadFeeling



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26661235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadFeeling/pseuds/BadFeeling
Summary: Rey, Ahsoka and others are taking a day off from training to spend a day at the beach. But Rey may have a problem: she never learned to swim. Hopefully someone like Ben will be on hand to teach her...
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Life's a Beach: A Star Wars fanfiction

‘LIFE’S A BEACH’: A Star Wars fanfiction

The sun packed a punch today, but Rey turned her cheek to it. That’s it, drink it up, she told her limbs, splayed across the soft white sands. Take it all in. Get drunk from it.

She was a mess of bruises, but the sun was rubbing them better – not gently; more pressing them hard like some heavy-handed masseur, and she thought of Ahsoka’s strong palms, working the knots from her shoulders after one of their training sessions.

“Yep, this’ll do it,” she heard her friend say from beside her. Rey turned her head and opened one eye, to see the Togruta’s chin cocked up at the sun in ecstasy, a smile cracking her lips.

“Need some balm on your skin,” Rey warned. “You’re going pink.”

Ahsoka waved her off lazily, and didn’t open her eyes.

Rey sat up, stretched and looked out to sea. They were far up from the tideline and the sands sloped gently down to where the waves were purring over them. The water was a deep, perfect blue; too perfect to be shattered like that, by Rose and Finn, who were playing an unfair two-against-one game, where they attacked Poe with splashes from both sides.

“Let’s join them,” Ahsoka said, surprising Rey with how quickly she sprang to her feet, and brushing sand off her.

“I can’t,” Rey said, flopping back down on her back and scrunching her eyes against the sun.

“You won’t learn how, you mean,” Ahsoka said. “Big, bad, scary blue ocean. Not like those nice safe deserts where you’re from. I can see why you’d be scared to go in.”

Rey waved her away. “Scared, lazy, impervious to insult.”

Something landed on her face, white and wispy. She pulled Ahsoka’s shirt off her eyes to see the girl standing over her in a bikini top and un-belting her breeches.

“Think I should go in naked?” she asked.

Rey shook her head. “Your choice. Not sure they’ve seen a naked Togruta before…”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka said, shrugging. “You wouldn’t be scared of Poe’s bare chest as well, would you?”  
Rey closed her eyes again and patted her own chest. “Insult-proof. Naked-man-proof.”

…but she was hot. She could feel the beads on her forehead. Plus, the water sounded like a lot of fun…

She sat up in time to watch Ahsoka sprint down the beach towards the water. She’d even the odds. Poor Poe was floundering about now, swearing and trying to swipe at one of his attackers, but always blinded by the saltwater, deafened by their laughter.

Fat lot of good I’d be. Rey pulled her knees up to her chest, wriggled her toes into the sand and tried to squint further up the beach.

-

Poe felt a pair of strong arms slip around his shoulders. He struggled; the arms slipped with the water on his skin, but then adjusted and latched on tighter. He grunted, still blind, thrashed; but they kept clinging.

“Hey, come on!” he shouted at whoever it was and made a grab for them, then he felt feet in the small of his back. The arms loosened but were replaced by legs, wrapping around his neck. He heard a girl laugh.

“Don’t be scared, horsey. I’ll be your eyes. Just charge.”

He smiled. That wasn’t Rose on his back. This was a boney-kneed thing, leaner, braver. He held the legs in place.

“Turn!” his rider yelled, jerking her left knee into his neck.

He grunted and turned right, blinking seawater from his eyes.

“Charge!” the rider ordered.

He dashed headlong.

Easier said than done. The water was up to his thighs and he laboured a few steps before crashing down on his knees. He swore, a pebble or shell slicing into his shin.

“Up! Up!” the rider ordered, squeezing his neck with both thighs. He found his balance and obeyed, bearing her little weight out of the water again in what must have been a burst of silver stars. He shook more stars from his mane and whinnied.

“Right,” she shouted, guided. “Charge!”

He could see now. Rose was ahead, perched on Finn’s shoulders, laughing and wobbling away. Finn’s eyes had that ‘come at me’ look in them.

Got you now, Poe thought. He tore through water, sending a wake out to either side, ploughed into Finn as Rose shrieked and threw her hands up to catch his rider’s. Finn went down instantly, and Rose too, dragging his knight off his shoulders with her into the sea. He stood there in the foam, laughing, making enormous splashes with his arms to keep the three of them drowned, as Rose and Ahsoka turned and wrestled in the shallows and Finn fought to stand up.

The orange-skinned girl rose from the froth, a grin on her face, and slapped her hand into his.

“Well done, horsey,” she said.

“You too,” he answered, then bent to help Rose up. Over on the beach still, he saw Rey, sitting looking at them, the breeze turning her hair into a rippling dark wind.

-

Rey scrunched her fingers through the sand, soft as bedsheets.

Why did you never learn to swim? she thought, angrily. She’d had all that time on Luke’s island, not to mention weeks in Ben’s company by now, and he was never shy of showing off. Here he was now, striding along the sands to her, the wind tugging at his shirt, pulling it tight across his chest and arms. She whistled at him and grinned. He waved back.

Now there was a man born to the sun – skin that tanned rather than burned, and hair that drank it like shadow. The summer plated him and polished him up. She looked at her own arms, at the pale skin whose origins were still a mystery to her. There were splotches of purple for now, smudges of yellowish-brown that shouldn’t have been there. Just another night in the dojo…

“We’ve all got them you know,” Ben said, sitting cross-legged down next to her and watching the water brawlers with her. “They won’t laugh at the bruises, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Rey cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not worried about taking my clothes off,” she said. “I’m worried they’ll think I’m a moron for not being able to swim.”

“Ah, your old nemesis,” Ben said, nodding.

She traced in the sand. “I guess… it’s the kind of thing people learn from their parents.”

She sensed Ben’s eyes drop away, felt him become suddenly fascinated with a piece of seaweed or a stone. Not that she could blame him. What was he supposed to say that someone hadn’t already? ‘You’ll find them one day’, was losing its appeal as much as ‘Who even needs them anyway?’

She stared at the water, beyond the wrestlers, where Ahsoka was now riding Poe’s muscled, rocky form like some sprouting limpet. She got up and started to unbutton her shirt, then winced as it came off down her shoulders, dragging over an especially nasty cut.

“Saltwater will clean my wounds out,” she told Ben, as he stared at her. She pulled the laces free on her breeches and shook them down to the sand, stepping out of them in just her underclothes.

Ben’s eyes went straight to the sand with her clothes, a blush showing through his tan.

“Oh come on,” Rey scolded him, rolling her eyes. “You’ve stripped off in front of me. Well, you’ve been topless anyway.”

“True,” he said, fingering the hem of his shirt. “True.”

“Come teach me,” she told him, as he rid himself of everything but his own undershorts. She ran down the sand to the water.

-

Ben was signalling to the others: Swim out, further, further.

“We’ll join you!” Rey shouted to them, as Ahsoka held up a thumb in acknowledgement and began pushing further out to sea, arms arcing in graceful, powerful strokes.

We’ll join you. She sounded sure enough to her own ears, but her fingers still refused to unlock from around Ben’s shoulders.

“I can’t feel the bottom anymore,” she said, as if he didn’t know that.

“You don’t have to let go,” he assured her, stopping to tread water.

She gave his shoulders a squeeze. “I know. I want to. Just like climbing, right? Different motions, though. Still trying not to fall. All that, yeah?”

“Um, if you like,” Ben said.

“No. You float, obviously. Full of air,” she said, to herself, but to try and assure him of her confidence. “Corpses float and they don’t need to thrash about.”

“I think they’re full of gas or something.”

“I know!” she said, and squeezed his shoulders again, hard this time. “Just saying, if it’s easy enough for a dead person then I can do it. And, after that, it’s all just arm work.”

“And leg work.”

“God, and breathing too, you bastard. Don’t not remind me to breathe, or I might forget.”

“Right, right,” Ben said, twisting in her grip and turning to face her. He had his hands on her hips and she resisted the instinct to grip onto him with every limb she had. Her arms went fully around his neck though, and she gave him a small kiss on the cheek.

“Got to let me go now,” she said.

“Lots to think about,” he said. “But also nothing at all. It’s natural, like walking. Yeah, maybe even climbing, for those of you that can do that.”

“Here we go,” Rey said.

Her arms did nothing. He didn’t try to undo them.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said. Her legs started to curl round his, but they kicked her away, gently.

“Need those to float,” he said, grinning. “Give it a try?”

She knew she was breathing hard. Gods, I must sound like such a child to him. Scared to let go… She looked over Ben’s shoulder at Ahsoka and Rose, Poe and Finn, who waved at her from the deeper parts. Rey shivered, then cautiously let one hand come free of Ben’s shoulder and waved back. For a second. She darted it straight back to him.

“That’s nice,” Ben said, grinning. “Any more? Or shall we call that a day?”

Child, stupid, moron, she thought, angrily to herself. She couldn’t keep hanging onto him like this; it would get awkward. Gingerly, she pushed herself away from his chest, keeping her hands firmly on his shoulders. Inch by inch, she drew more and more water between them.

“How’m I doing?” she asked.

“Well so far.” He smiled wider.

She let go of him, shrieked, then plunged under the water, kicking, thrashing, then gulped in air as she broke the surface again, bobbed up and down. She reached for him, found and clung.

“Fine.” He kissed her wet cheek. “Good start.”

“Going to have to be my seahorse for a bit longer though,” she said to him.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Writer’s notes:
> 
> So, short and sweet? I’ll keep putting out the odd one-shot while I work on larger projects, maybe taking a few further if they really get my imagination going!
> 
> Meanwhile, work is underway on the next episode of my Star Wars Sequel Trilogy rewrite. If you haven’t caught up with my Episode VII yet, I strongly suggest you do so, as I’m very happy with it!
> 
> ‘STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE (RE)AWAKENS’ is a completely original story, reimagined from the ground up, but starring many of the real sequel characters alongside the classic ones.
> 
> Either way, thanks for reading this one-shot. See you in the next!


End file.
